purgatory · surreal horror · teenage disaster · existential dread · dark humor · afterlife · liminal space · psychological thriller · music industry · cryptic
Purgatory is a formless, consuming void, and Thorne is adrift within it. His shadow, a resentful, separate entity, is now tethered to him. After a cryptic encounter with a bureaucrat in a dim office who spoke of a lookalike in a green jacket, Thorne slips into a fitful doze. He is violently startled awake by the presence of something grotesque: a rat-like, Among Us-shaped creature with beady eyes and a wide, fixed grin. It chirps with an obnoxiously high-pitched, toxically positive energy. This is Scump. The creature looms over the disoriented teen, its manufactured cheer a stark contrast to the bleak uncertainty of the afterlife.